I'm a first time DM trying to create a starter campaign, and to keep things simple I wanted my adventurers to start on an island with a single town. The idea is that the town is a small port which is halfway between to continents and just acts as a service station for ships. The island has some hostile locals if they want to go hunting and I've got a couple of character ideas for NPC's that need help from new adventurers. Rather then have them meet on the island would it make more sense for them to meet on a boat going to the island maybe with a small mission to give them a common cause. Or would putting them on the boat and then only giving them the one town be to closed ended?
Nah, that's fine. The initial "how did the party meet" is always railroaded - you have to, after all, have the adventurers meet and be in the same place.
That's also the kind of thing that's good for a Session 0 discussion, or pre-campaign. "OK guys, make your backstories, and have whatever the backstory is lead to all of you agreeing to do [small mission], and we'll start with you guys on a boat to the island."
Well, you can have players create shared backstories for their characters during character creation, meaning they met before the campaign started, but if you want to throw a group of random characters together, a ship seems like a pretty solid choice.
Ok, thanks guys. For the first encounter, does it need to start the story off for the whole campaign? They meet a stranger offering them riches if they complete a task when they land. Or would it be better to make them work together first, then give them an actual mission once their on land? The captain wants them to kill rats in the lower decks to stop them spreading once the ship is in port, kind of thing.
Yeah, I don’t see any railroading, and it could work. It’s like a re-skin of meeting in a tavern, but different enough that it won’t be obvious that’s what it is. It’s not closed to have them go to one town. No matter where they start, it can only be in one place. To give a counter example, railroading would be, no, you can’t just stay on the ship and go back where you came from or you can’t just get on the next ship out of town. You must stay and do stuff in town.
I mean, if I were a player, I’d want to play along and just go to the town and do stuff and see where it takes me, but if I had to, that’s where it gets a bit railroad-y. Basically, having the option to leave when the players want to, as opposed to when the DM decides they should, is the difference between railroading and not.
As long as they can choose where to go from the town, and when, it’s not railroading. They decide the mayor’s kidnapped daughter is less important than looking for the fountain of youth, and choose accordingly, they aren’t railroaded.
as for the action of the first session, it’s fully your call and there’s no lesser option. As long as you make it a worthwhile activity, it doesn’t matter whether it serves the end of building the party into a team, or moving the main plot forward. Though, dropping a seed is never a bad idea. If you want the time on the ship to be part of the adventure, sure, have the captain give them a task. Skill checks to repair stuff or prepare for a storm. Or the cage of badgers (which are a delicacy on the island and brings a good price) has busted open and the need to be rounded up before they tear up the other crates and burrow into the ship. If they can do it non-lethally, there’s a bonus in it for them, but they need to be dealt with before they destroy other cargo.
if you want the ship just to be a plot device to get them to port where the real action begins, that’s cool, too. Maybe the captain just gives them a word to the wise before they step off. “Be careful. I heard travelers go missin’ from this port all the time. Don’t trust strangers, and keep your coins somewhere safer than a pouch on your belt.” Just to set the scene and help you worldbuild a bit.
All starts are a railroad, as FTL says. The best you can do is tell them where they're starting and let them work into their backstory WHY. Why are they on the boat? What has drawn them to this island? It would be worth giving them some basic info about the island so they can come up with something fun.
Second: Give them their quest WHILE THEY'RE ON THE BOAT. As soon as they hit land, all bets are off. They won't go to the town/tavern/estate that you planned. So get them while they're stuck. Someone approaches them on the ship. You look like a bunch of capable people. I have a mission/job/task. And the rewards are well worth the minimal risk. Interested?
Ok, thanks guys. For the first encounter, does it need to start the story off for the whole campaign? They meet a stranger offering them riches if they complete a task when they land. Or would it be better to make them work together first, then give them an actual mission once their on land? The captain wants them to kill rats in the lower decks to stop them spreading once the ship is in port, kind of thing.
I would avoid the quest model if you can. Instead, have them pulled together by a threat that's particular to a boat. For example, the boat gets attacked by pirates. Natural way to discover "hey, we're all good at killing stuff".
The first encounter may have very little to do with the rest of the campaign beyond providing a reason for the characters to be together. My current campaign started with the characters independently travelling to a major city, each for their own reasons. Because of bandit activity travellers have been advised to travel in groups. The game begins with this bunch of strangers meeting at the town gate and heading off together. Their encounter with bandits brings the characters together and provides a rationale for all the characters to undertake a mission which ties in to the back stories of only two characters. The main story line doesn’t start till after they survive the encounter with the bandits and get to the city.
Small island with just one town sounds like an excellent start for a new campaign. A "standard" advice for new campaigns is to start small. That's not just because it makes it more easy to handle for the DM, but in fact even more because you don't have to bombard the players with tons of information. They can learn about the world through play.
I agree that formation of the party is "railroading". Just putting four random characters on a ship and assume they will form a party, can work, but it can also go straight down the drain.
I would do one of the following:
If you would like the characters to "just" form an adventuring party that's going to explore the island. Make sure to establish the party before you start play together with the players. You should probably also decide WHY they have decided to go to this island for "adventure".
Create the reason they are going to the island as part of your pitch: "You will play a group of adventurers that have been engaged by admiral Nelson to go to this island and explore (whatever)." Then let the players create characters that would be willing to do that. Giving the characters a "sponsor" is a great way to make sure they stay together, and actually follow your plots. This is not railroading as I see it. Railroading will be if there is only a single path to explore you try to force your players to follow.
In both cases it would be completely fine to start onboard the boat. Just remember in neither case will they be able to "start" on the quest before they reach land. You could create a few small adventures on the travel - like exploring a small island. Help defending against something etc.
Ok, thanks guys. For the first encounter, does it need to start the story off for the whole campaign? They meet a stranger offering them riches if they complete a task when they land. Or would it be better to make them work together first, then give them an actual mission once their on land? The captain wants them to kill rats in the lower decks to stop them spreading once the ship is in port, kind of thing.
Either of those can work. Though IMO, if it's rats belowdecks (a variant on the tried and true rats in the basement of the inn or tavern), I would make it something more than just rats. In other words, maybe it seems to be rats, but something else is going on. Maybe you could do a murder mystery -- they go down to clean out the rats and find the helmsman down there in a pool of his own blood. When they go to get help, THEY are accused of his murder and have to solve the murder to clear their names. Might be more complex than you want to do... it's all up to what you want to do with it.
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I second the idea of having something happen while they are ON the boat.
If you want to go with clearing out rats, have them clear rats off the ship - perhaps they're gathering in the bilge. Maybe the town won't let them port if they aren't clear of rats. That way they have to work together while still on the ship and don't have the option so easily of splitting up before the 1st mission can be given. BioWizard's idea of finding the helmsman dead is also great - if this happens while out at sea, then you've got an awesome Murder Mystery Out At Sea adventure that must be solved before they get to town or else they'll be hanged - an excellent motivator for working together!
If you want to do the mystery, I suggest boning up by reading some Agatha Christie. She loved doing mysteries with a "closed set" of possible suspects. She did murders on boats, trains, and airplanes, and also in the middle of a bridge game in someone's living room.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I agree completely with something happening while they’re on the boat that they all respond to. And they don’t have to be a team at first.
You have a military background? You were discharged from the army and you’re on your way home.
You have a bunch of water skills? You’re a member of the ship’s crew.
You have a religious or academic background? You’re on your way to a famous church, shrine, library, or something similar.
You’re a rogue? Or you have a high charisma? You stole from the wrong person or seduced the wrong person’s betrothed and you had to leave town in a hurry.
Then when whatever surprise happens during the voyage they all pull together into a team. And you can have one of them who is heading to the island to perform a task who recruits the rest to help him.
Thanks guys these ideas have been really great, I'm going to start getting a map together and work out the history of the place. Also are there any resources for ship encounters, I should be looking for?
To be the boring guy: I think I will strongly advice not to go into any kind of naval combat or ship maneuvers and stuff.
Your (OP's) very first sentence is also some of the best advice you can get: keep things simple! To then start the game with using some extra rules doesn't sound like a very good idea. Your players (if they are also quite new), will probably have more than enough with getting to know their characters, and as a new DM, you probably will have more than enough with handling both them and the basic system. Don't add to the burden by implementing more rules to the burden. You can slo try that later if you think it sounds funny!
To be the boring guy: I think I will strongly advice not to go into any kind of naval combat or ship maneuvers and stuff.
Well, boarding actions are naval combat and perfectly fun for players, but yes, basic recommended ship to ship combat is "you have a round or two of ranged combat, a round where people can use acrobatics to swing over on ropes or w/e, and then the ships are adjacent and it's a boarding action". Anything else tends to be boring for the PCs (also realistically tends towards "wow, fireball is ludicrously deadly against ships").
To be the boring guy: I think I will strongly advice not to go into any kind of naval combat or ship maneuvers and stuff.
Well, boarding actions are naval combat and perfectly fun for players, but yes, basic recommended ship to ship combat is "you have a round or two of ranged combat, a round where people can use acrobatics to swing over on ropes or w/e, and then the ships are adjacent and it's a boarding action". Anything else tends to be boring for the PCs (also realistically tends towards "wow, fireball is ludicrously deadly against ships").
Yeah. I was thinking mostly of not using the UA-rules that were shared which includes manning stations etc. However I think my advice to a new DM (and probably also some new players?) is to have the first combat encounter to be quite "straight forward". It is a toll for any DM to try to have "control" on a lot of extras on both sides.
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Ludo ergo sum!
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I'm a first time DM trying to create a starter campaign, and to keep things simple I wanted my adventurers to start on an island with a single town. The idea is that the town is a small port which is halfway between to continents and just acts as a service station for ships. The island has some hostile locals if they want to go hunting and I've got a couple of character ideas for NPC's that need help from new adventurers. Rather then have them meet on the island would it make more sense for them to meet on a boat going to the island maybe with a small mission to give them a common cause. Or would putting them on the boat and then only giving them the one town be to closed ended?
Nah, that's fine. The initial "how did the party meet" is always railroaded - you have to, after all, have the adventurers meet and be in the same place.
That's also the kind of thing that's good for a Session 0 discussion, or pre-campaign. "OK guys, make your backstories, and have whatever the backstory is lead to all of you agreeing to do [small mission], and we'll start with you guys on a boat to the island."
Well, you can have players create shared backstories for their characters during character creation, meaning they met before the campaign started, but if you want to throw a group of random characters together, a ship seems like a pretty solid choice.
Ok, thanks guys. For the first encounter, does it need to start the story off for the whole campaign? They meet a stranger offering them riches if they complete a task when they land. Or would it be better to make them work together first, then give them an actual mission once their on land? The captain wants them to kill rats in the lower decks to stop them spreading once the ship is in port, kind of thing.
Yeah, I don’t see any railroading, and it could work. It’s like a re-skin of meeting in a tavern, but different enough that it won’t be obvious that’s what it is. It’s not closed to have them go to one town. No matter where they start, it can only be in one place.
To give a counter example, railroading would be, no, you can’t just stay on the ship and go back where you came from or you can’t just get on the next ship out of town. You must stay and do stuff in town.
I mean, if I were a player, I’d want to play along and just go to the town and do stuff and see where it takes me, but if I had to, that’s where it gets a bit railroad-y. Basically, having the option to leave when the players want to, as opposed to when the DM decides they should, is the difference between railroading and not.
As long as they can choose where to go from the town, and when, it’s not railroading. They decide the mayor’s kidnapped daughter is less important than looking for the fountain of youth, and choose accordingly, they aren’t railroaded.
as for the action of the first session, it’s fully your call and there’s no lesser option. As long as you make it a worthwhile activity, it doesn’t matter whether it serves the end of building the party into a team, or moving the main plot forward. Though, dropping a seed is never a bad idea. If you want the time on the ship to be part of the adventure, sure, have the captain give them a task. Skill checks to repair stuff or prepare for a storm. Or the cage of badgers (which are a delicacy on the island and brings a good price) has busted open and the need to be rounded up before they tear up the other crates and burrow into the ship. If they can do it non-lethally, there’s a bonus in it for them, but they need to be dealt with before they destroy other cargo.
if you want the ship just to be a plot device to get them to port where the real action begins, that’s cool, too. Maybe the captain just gives them a word to the wise before they step off. “Be careful. I heard travelers go missin’ from this port all the time. Don’t trust strangers, and keep your coins somewhere safer than a pouch on your belt.” Just to set the scene and help you worldbuild a bit.
All starts are a railroad, as FTL says. The best you can do is tell them where they're starting and let them work into their backstory WHY. Why are they on the boat? What has drawn them to this island? It would be worth giving them some basic info about the island so they can come up with something fun.
Second: Give them their quest WHILE THEY'RE ON THE BOAT. As soon as they hit land, all bets are off. They won't go to the town/tavern/estate that you planned. So get them while they're stuck. Someone approaches them on the ship. You look like a bunch of capable people. I have a mission/job/task. And the rewards are well worth the minimal risk. Interested?
I would avoid the quest model if you can. Instead, have them pulled together by a threat that's particular to a boat. For example, the boat gets attacked by pirates. Natural way to discover "hey, we're all good at killing stuff".
The first encounter may have very little to do with the rest of the campaign beyond providing a reason for the characters to be together. My current campaign started with the characters independently travelling to a major city, each for their own reasons. Because of bandit activity travellers have been advised to travel in groups. The game begins with this bunch of strangers meeting at the town gate and heading off together. Their encounter with bandits brings the characters together and provides a rationale for all the characters to undertake a mission which ties in to the back stories of only two characters. The main story line doesn’t start till after they survive the encounter with the bandits and get to the city.
Small island with just one town sounds like an excellent start for a new campaign. A "standard" advice for new campaigns is to start small. That's not just because it makes it more easy to handle for the DM, but in fact even more because you don't have to bombard the players with tons of information. They can learn about the world through play.
I agree that formation of the party is "railroading". Just putting four random characters on a ship and assume they will form a party, can work, but it can also go straight down the drain.
I would do one of the following:
In both cases it would be completely fine to start onboard the boat. Just remember in neither case will they be able to "start" on the quest before they reach land. You could create a few small adventures on the travel - like exploring a small island. Help defending against something etc.
Ludo ergo sum!
Either of those can work. Though IMO, if it's rats belowdecks (a variant on the tried and true rats in the basement of the inn or tavern), I would make it something more than just rats. In other words, maybe it seems to be rats, but something else is going on. Maybe you could do a murder mystery -- they go down to clean out the rats and find the helmsman down there in a pool of his own blood. When they go to get help, THEY are accused of his murder and have to solve the murder to clear their names. Might be more complex than you want to do... it's all up to what you want to do with it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I second the idea of having something happen while they are ON the boat.
If you want to go with clearing out rats, have them clear rats off the ship - perhaps they're gathering in the bilge. Maybe the town won't let them port if they aren't clear of rats. That way they have to work together while still on the ship and don't have the option so easily of splitting up before the 1st mission can be given. BioWizard's idea of finding the helmsman dead is also great - if this happens while out at sea, then you've got an awesome Murder Mystery Out At Sea adventure that must be solved before they get to town or else they'll be hanged - an excellent motivator for working together!
If you want to do the mystery, I suggest boning up by reading some Agatha Christie. She loved doing mysteries with a "closed set" of possible suspects. She did murders on boats, trains, and airplanes, and also in the middle of a bridge game in someone's living room.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I agree completely with something happening while they’re on the boat that they all respond to. And they don’t have to be a team at first.
You have a military background? You were discharged from the army and you’re on your way home.
You have a bunch of water skills? You’re a member of the ship’s crew.
You have a religious or academic background? You’re on your way to a famous church, shrine, library, or something similar.
You’re a rogue? Or you have a high charisma? You stole from the wrong person or seduced the wrong person’s betrothed and you had to leave town in a hurry.
Then when whatever surprise happens during the voyage they all pull together into a team. And you can have one of them who is heading to the island to perform a task who recruits the rest to help him.
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Thanks guys these ideas have been really great, I'm going to start getting a map together and work out the history of the place. Also are there any resources for ship encounters, I should be looking for?
I do t have it myself, but I hear there’s ship stuff in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Most of the book is setting, but some ship stuff at the end.
If you don't have access to Ghosts of Saltmarsh, the Unearthed Arcana for "Of Ships and Sea" is pretty good, though not perfect. https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_ShipsSea.pdf
Best of luck, and have fun!
To be the boring guy: I think I will strongly advice not to go into any kind of naval combat or ship maneuvers and stuff.
Your (OP's) very first sentence is also some of the best advice you can get: keep things simple! To then start the game with using some extra rules doesn't sound like a very good idea. Your players (if they are also quite new), will probably have more than enough with getting to know their characters, and as a new DM, you probably will have more than enough with handling both them and the basic system. Don't add to the burden by implementing more rules to the burden. You can slo try that later if you think it sounds funny!
Ludo ergo sum!
Well, boarding actions are naval combat and perfectly fun for players, but yes, basic recommended ship to ship combat is "you have a round or two of ranged combat, a round where people can use acrobatics to swing over on ropes or w/e, and then the ships are adjacent and it's a boarding action". Anything else tends to be boring for the PCs (also realistically tends towards "wow, fireball is ludicrously deadly against ships").
Yeah. I was thinking mostly of not using the UA-rules that were shared which includes manning stations etc. However I think my advice to a new DM (and probably also some new players?) is to have the first combat encounter to be quite "straight forward". It is a toll for any DM to try to have "control" on a lot of extras on both sides.
Ludo ergo sum!